REPORT OF THE COitmSSIOIfERS xxvii 



The weir took any amount of small fish, smelt and gaspereau and eels. Also 

 small shad 1 inch to 4 or 6 inches long in July, but none before June 20; they were 

 bright silvery fish, either shad or gaspereau. Alewives also occurred with them. We 

 don't get these small fish in the nets. 



Wliile another witness, on the Colchester shore, stated, 'I have seen small shad 

 about the middle of August in big schools in a weir. They were 2 inches or even 

 smaller. Xone have been seen by me for a long time.' A similar statement was 

 made by a witness at Great Village : 



As to the migrations of shad, &c., we often scooped up little fish two or four inches 

 long in millions after the run of shad was almost over. I have seen a weir at Bass 

 river in which multitudes of these small fish were killed, when I hired with Fulton 

 long ago. The sweep net swept these little fish on to the beach. Most of them went 

 out as the water went out. They were young Shubenacadie fry coming down in 

 August or September. 



Moreover, in the stake seine in Scott's bay, the evidence showed that shad were 

 taken as smaU as 6 to 8 inches in length. Such small immature fish are, it is clear, 

 only a few months old, the larger probably approaching a year in age. 



These small shad, in our opinion, become in the course of their growth what are 

 called summer shad. 



The fact that shad of various sizes and ages, as described above, frequent the 

 waters of the bay about the same time during the season, clearly shows that these 

 fish are native to our own waters and have not migrated from southern United States 

 waters. As the Fish ing Gazette, N.T., said not long ago : ' The little shad remain 

 in the river until the fall, when they too take to the ocean. It has been proven that 

 they return in subsequent years to spawn in the waters of their infancy.' 



It is important to notice that the small, immature shad referred to were taken 

 in weirs and stake seines, but not in drift nets or gill nets, through the meshes of 

 which these small shad readily pass. 



Methods of Capture. 



There are at least six methods adopted in the taking of shad by the fishermen. 

 By all these methods the fish are either, on the one hand, inclosed or entrapped, or, 

 on the other hand, meshed or gilled, according to the type of apparatus used in the 

 different localities: — 



(a) Drift nets, or gill nets, have been used over a very wide area, viz., St. Mary's 

 bay, Annapolis basin, Minas basin (on the Avon river) and Cobequid bay, also 

 Cumberland bay, Chignecto bay, including the Petitcodiac river, St. John river and 

 its tributaries and finally the shore of St. John county from St. John harbour to 

 Point Lepreau. 



Thes nets are mostly constructed of linen twine, while when first used they were 

 constructed of cotton twine. The twine in some cases is very fine, in some places 

 Xo. 22 linen being used and in other places Nos. 13 and 20, while in other localities 

 the nets used are made of 3-thread mackerel twine, or are Scotch nets bought already 

 knitted. The length of gill nets ranges from 200 fathoms to 600 or 700 fathoms, that 

 is, twelve or fifteen bunches to twenty-five or thirty bunches, but in the salt water, 

 in the mouths of rivers, shorter nets are frequently used, as short a length as 30 or 

 40 fathoms. The depth of the net ranges from 42 to 56 or 60 meshes, the mesh being 



